Time Flies

It's hard to believe that a month has passed since I last posted, and even harder to believe that there is anyone left reading this blog. But I always hear we still have a few loyal fans that are reading, so I try to get back periodically to post updates.

This past school year blazed by in a flurry of activities and I was really looking forward to the peace and quiet of a lazy summer. But alas, that peace and quiet has eluded us so far. I'm starting to realize that such is life with three small boys!

Cade kept us hopping the first month of summer with his activities, including swim team, vacation bible school, and a week of day camp at the new school where he will attend kindergarten next year! He absolutely adores swim team and really made great strides with his swimming over the course of the season, which was only about six weeks long. As a former competitive swimmer, my heart was bursting with pride to see him get so into it - it was definitely my "helicopter mom" moment. Now that he's coming along on his stroke technique, next summer I think we will focus on swimming the entire length of the pool without stopping to see if he is beating the swimmers in the other lanes. Cade also had a blast at his camp at his new school. While he initially complained that I signed him up for reading and writing camp instead of sports camp (yeah, I've become one of THOSE moms), he really got into it and even offered the teacher an unsolicited goodbye hug on the last day. Considering the fact that he "hugs" his own mother by extending an arm so that she may bestow a kiss upon it, he either REALLY enjoyed the camp or was hot for the teacher - I'm not sure which. But at any rate, it looks like he will be happy at his new school, which is a relief.

Drewbie is laying low activity-wise this summer, since he was worn out by soccer in the spring. But he was able to not only attend vacation bible school, but retain information there as well. He now writes "bible" any time he can connect pen (or crayon, as the case may be) to paper and wants to inform anyone who is listening that he knows how to spell and write "bible". He also informed me the other day that when he had a problem, he intended not to go around it, under it, or over it, but THROUGH it - with God's guidance. There was some water involved in the initial explanation of his new life philosophy, which leads me to believe he is channelling his inner Moses, so yay for VBS. When he's not being holier-than-thou, Drew is writing letters and asking to spell every word he can think of. He is so into writing, spelling, and sounding out letters that I predicted he would begin reading by the end of the summer. Last week, he surprised me by sounding out "Cara" and "Texas" - damned if the kid can't read and he hasn't even turned 4 yet. Cade has ability, but little interest, in reading, so I'm hoping a little healthy competition will spur them both into a lifelong love of reading.

Josh, you may be surprised to learn, is far from reading, but finally decided to get up off his butt and start crawling at almost 10 months. He started crawling one week, pulling up the next, and now this week is desperate to tackle stairs. The number one item on his agenda is keeping up with the Big Boys, so the minute they leave the room, he's racing after them. When he hits one of our many baby gates (2 sets of stairs in the house), he yowls longingly until someone takes pity on him and lifts him up to be reunited with his brothers. It's his misfortune that he will always be 3 years behind them, but it looks like that's not gonna stop him from trying to keep up.

A funny note on Josh is that he is Cade's mini-me. The physical resemblance is striking (to the extent that we are glad the baby pictures are date-stamped!), but personalities are emerging as very similar as well. Joshie is a tad bit more of a snuggler than Cade was, but is rapidly getting too busy to put up with much cuddling anymore. The one thing he already shares is Cade's complete disdain for baby toys and fascination with electronics. Like Cade when he was a baby, Josh has little use for traditional toys - preferring instead to pass the hours with cell phones, keychains, TV remotes, and (lately) poker chips.

It's weird how fast the information age changes us. When I started this blog it was an easy and simple way to keep everyone updated with the doings of the kids. Somewhere along the line, even this became too time consuming and now most updates on life with the Foxes are posted via Facebook (I'm trying to make the leap to Twitter - @babybuncher2) so find me there if you want to. I'll keep trekking along on the blog when I have a few minutes to hammer out the novella-length post required by my infrequent updates. 'Till next time....